What would YOU do with a paid sabbatical?
African safari? Visit your home country? Tap into your ancestral roots? Take time with family? That’s the very real – and sometimes daunting – question executives face every year when they’re picked for the Foundation’s Sabbatical Program. Now in its 11th year, the program for nonprofit and tribal executives offers sabbaticals of two to six months. October 1 is the deadline to apply for a sabbatical in 2015.
Research shows that organizations benefit when nonprofit leaders engage in well-planned sabbaticals. An extended leave can lead to new perspectives for the leader, the board and staff, and often energizes organizational innovation. Stories and anecdotes from recent sabbatical returnees bear that out.
Peggy Brown, executive director, Alaska Network on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault, spent two months of her three-month sabbatical in Western Europe. She saw goats in trees (Morocco); took art lessons in Malaga, Spain; researched her family name in Edinburgh and maternal roots in Madrid; and toured the southern coast of Spain by motorcycle. That wasn’t all, but you get the idea.
Among the lessons she learned: “I want to work well, not hard. There is a balance to be found and maintained.” The benefits extended beyond the personal. “I left one senior management person as acting executive director and two others as management support to the acting executive director. They all learned new skills and took on new responsibilities, and thereby the capacity of the management team was enhanced and thrived . . .”
Larry Parker, executive director at Anchorage Community YMCA, had a clear goal: to shore up his “four-legged stool” of life – spiritual, family, professional and life of others. Was it achieved? Absolutely, he says. Parker and his family took a motor home trip in the Lower 48 and Canada. A few of his observations:
“Losing the ‘Y guy’ mentality required me to become something else and that was simply a dad and husband enjoying time with his family. I was a bit surprised, and even a little concerned, at how easy it was to shut those thoughts off! The passion for the Y was still there but it was nice to experience not needing to almost completely identify myself with my work. . . .
“Living together in a motor home requires a different level of respect than in a house. The kids could not just go to their room and close their door. Everyone finally accepted the fact we were going to be together, very close together, for the next several weeks. From that point forward, things became very cool as a family. Even after being home for three months our family still has this shared experience that bonds us. The phrase ‘The Trip’ is how we refer those weeks on the road. Those experiences have created a lifetime bond of fond memories.”
The whole family learned lessons, Parker wrote. His big one was “I love my God, I love my family and I really enjoy my job. The Y is what I do, not who I am.”
Rowena Palomar, executive director at Advocates for Victims of Violence, Inc. in Valdez, packed a lot into her family’s trip to the Philippines.
“I was able to give my children the chance to know and meet their relatives outside the U.S. It also gave me the time to resolve a longtime family dispute. It gave me the break I needed to keep my sanity after working long hours and giving so much of myself to my work in assisting people affected by domestic violence and sexual assault,” she wrote.
Palomar spent time with old friends and revisited her first, beloved job as a tour guide in the Philippines. She even guided some tours and found that all the information came back. She turned her day’s pay and tips over to the bus driver. “I wasn’t there for the fee,” she wrote. “I was there to show my children where I started and to do something I love and enjoy doing the most, being a tour guide . . . it brought back good memories.”
She reveled in well-earned self-indulgence: “I didn’t have to make breakfast, bring the kids to school and go directly to work or answer a crisis call the moment I opened my eyes, What a wonderful feeling! I treasured that moment and told myself . . . life is so good.”
Among the lessons Palomar took from the experience was about her health. She learned she has high blood pressure. “It only shows how much I have ignored myself because of my hectic schedule and long hours at work. Since that time, I don’t take my health for granted.”
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